Divorce Story
by Nos4a2no9
Author's Notes: Many thanks to Slidellra for her thoughtful and generous beta. Sli is the best kind of enabler.
Divorce Story
She realizes her marriage is over on May 17, 1996. It's a cold, raining morning, and her new apartment is filled with bleak gray light. It's a slothful kind of Sunday. Something about the drab quality of the light and the unread stack of Monday-morning briefs on the bedside table makes her reluctant to leave the bed.
Her moment of realization strikes when Ray flops down beside her. He brushes her hair back off her neck, hands warm and dry on her skin, and whispers, "Hey, you want to fool around?"
She's struck by how cold she feels. Usually these husky suggestions of Ray's send an electric shock through her system. Invitations to make love in the middle of the day, in broad daylight when she should be working, have always excited her.
Ray knows exactly how to make his case. He's a wildly attractive man, always has been, and he's as skilled and practiced in bed as Stella is in the courtroom. He traces her neck with the lightest, most tender of kisses. He brushes his thumb over her nipple, teasing gently. And when his hand drops between her legs she opens for him.
Even though she's cold, she's wet.
Stella loved him yesterday. She loved him two years ago when she asked him to move out for the first time. She loved him a month ago when she asked him to sign the papers.
She's loved Ray Kowalski since she was thirteen years old and Ray pissed himself in her father's bank in order to save her life. He's thrown himself on a lot of swords for her over the years, this scruffy knight in slightly faded armor.
She loved him yesterday. What's changed?
The question haunts her as he presses wet kisses to her neck, his fingers brushing lightly--so lightly--over her clit. It makes her gasp a little. He knows her, knows that the suggestion of a touch is all she really needs right now. He kisses her deeply, easing one finger into her at the same time, and she sighs against him, presses down on his hand. His finger glides slickly now, inside and then out. He moves as if they have all the time in the world.
She feels a terrible panic building inside. Doesn't he know that she doesn't love him anymore?
"You're so soft," he murmurs, kissing her forehead, her cheek. "You feel so good, Stell."
Old words, familiar words. He must have said them to her a thousand times over the years. He did this to her-for her-the first time when they were sixteen, that summer her parents went to New York for the weekend. It had felt so strange then, and Ray had been so nervous. He'd stopped every so often to ask if she was okay, as if her harsh breathing and soft moans of pleasure hadn't been enough to convince him that it was fine, that she liked his fingers in her.
He'd learned. And it had never felt casual with Ray, never felt like a step on the way to something else. He'd never rushed. She'd loved that about him.
One year they'd taken two weeks and driven out West. He'd wanted to see the Grand Canyon, she'd wanted to see the Pacific. Halfway across Iowa that first night, when the car felt dark and warm and secure, he'd slipped a hand under her skirt and spent hours making her shiver and shake and come as they flew over the highway in the dark.
But that was years ago, and now they're together in a bed they no longer share, and he is working his slick thumb over her, into her. Stella arches up off the bed and wraps her arm around his neck, dragging him closer. He smiles against her. Maybe he really believes that somehow this will make everything else right.
He slips out of her arms and slides down her body. She's panting slightly, and spreads herself open for him, legs wide.
He has to know how much she wants this. She hopes he understands.
At the first light brush of Ray's mouth she sighs and goes liquid. He licks her with deliberately controlled strokes, the broad flat of his tongue putting the perfect pressure-
"There!" she cries out, grabbing for his head, threading her fingers through his hair. He nips her, which makes her groan, and then arrows his tongue down into her, into the heat and heart of her.
She doesn't love him, Stella reminds herself. But she doesn't know why.
The old reasons swim over her, old excuses, old arguments she's made to herself a thousand times. They were too young to get married. They didn't know who they were. They've both changed, grown apart.
He wanted children. She doesn't want to have a child with a man who might not come home one night.
His eyes linger on tall, broad-shouldered men who pass them on the street. Even if Ray isn't aware of it, she sees it.
She doesn't know how to talk to him anymore.
So many reasons. Most of them good reasons. Until today she'd never had this, the best reason of them all. She doesn't love him anymore. And maybe there really is no possible explanation. Despite the way he still makes her tremble and sigh, makes her heart beat faster, makes her crazy for him...maybe it really is over.
She doesn't love him. Knowing why isn't the point.
Ray licks at her like she's ice cream, like Stella's the sweetest thing he's ever known. It's entirely possible that she is. She knows he's never been with anyone else.
When he adds a finger, circling and then dipping into her, he doesn't stop what he's doing with his tongue. She goes wild, bucking up off the bed, begging him to fuck her, to make her come, to release her from this hot, tight prison of needing the one person she doesn't want.
He slides his finger out, pulls away, and slicks himself down with her juices. And before she's even aware of what he's doing he's pushing inside her, cock sliding smoothly into her, and she lifts her hips up to meet him. No condom, she thinks. They haven't bothered since she went on the pill years ago. And she prefers it like this, with nothing separating her from her husband.
Nothing except all of the unspoken reasons, and those unvoiced explanations.
"God, Stella," he pants, his breath hot on her neck. His face is blissful, golden and transcendent in the feeble sunlight. He moves inside her fluidly, water pouring over rock. Into rock. And still she feels so hard and cold.
Ray loves her. He always has, and he always will. She feels sorry for him. He can't know their marriage ended this morning.
She closes her eyes-she can't bear to look at him like this-and slips a hand between their bodies to feel where they're connected. He fills her, overwhelms her, but it's not enough. She touches herself, and comes one last time.
His orgasm is silent, almost reverent. Like the way pilgrims whisper their prayers in a cathedral, Ray climaxes without a sound. He pulls out of her body and lies at her side, spent, a relaxed smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
He's happy, she realizes. This is enough for him. Just being with her is enough for him.
Pity swells inside her again, and she realizes she could grow to hate him for his weakness, for his need to be loved. He needs...someone, in a way that she doesn't.
Stella pulls away. Away from his kisses and his warmth and the desperate gift of his love. She doesn't want that anymore. The cold knot inside tightens.
"I'm sorry," she says, wrapping a sheet around her body. "I can't. Not anymore. It's not right."
She expects him to fight with her, to plead their case once again. And she's ready with all the reasons why their marriage is over-ready, even, to haul out the reason she's just discovered-but he only lies there, quietly stunned.
"What's changed?"
"I don't know," she says, surprised to hear the tears in her voice. "Something. When I wasn't looking."
Ray's face goes white, his eyes close, and she feels like she's slid a knife between his ribs. His lips part soundlessly. She prepares herself for an argument, for an angry tirade. But instead he rolls out of bed to collect the clothing they'd scattered on the floor last night. His hair sticks up in funny directions, his carefully-cultivated hairstyle ruined by her grasping hands.
"I'm sorry, Ray."
"Yeah." His voice is flat, dull. Lifeless. "Look, they offered me this job. Undercover thing. Don't know how long it'll last."
"Is it dangerous?"
He shrugs, and steps into his pants. "Not really your problem."
"I still--"
"Don't," he cuts her off sharply. "Just, don't. Stella, I--" He runs his hand through his hair; she can no longer see the evidence of her too-tight hold. "I can't do this."
He pulls his shirt on, head disappearing for a moment, belly exposed. She's wounded him so badly.
"I really am sorry."
He covers the hurt with another shrug. "Everybody's sorry."
There was a time when she would have argued with him. This is the right choice, much as it hurts right now. He shouldn't be with someone who doesn't love him, and she shouldn't be with someone who needs so badly to be loved. They've already wasted too many years.
"Let me know that you're okay," she tells him, and the words hang between them. Ray looks like he's fighting laughter, or tears.
"Yeah." His voice is so rough and raw. "Okay. I'll be in touch."
She only stops shaking when the door clicks shut behind him.
THE END
End Divorce Story by Nos4a2no9
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